


about today

by killkissbe



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Gen, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-20 21:59:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4803749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killkissbe/pseuds/killkissbe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Mindy's alternate universe in While I Was Sleeping were to continue, what would it look like? Well, painful. Set to the tune of About Today by The National. Spoilers galore for 4x01.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For mindyscully.
> 
> (I'm sorry!)

_Hey, are you awake?_

_Yeah I'm right here,_

_Well, can I ask you about today?_

_How close am I to losing you?_

_([x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef1nJWtkprU))_

* * *

 

Almost dying is, surprising to no one, incredibly painful. When Mindy's eyes open, it's like she's experiencing a symphony of agony, unable to quite pinpoint specific sources of pain and instead all of her hurting.

Her first concern is the baby, of course, her hands falling to her belly before she realises that it's flat. Empty. There's no baby of Danny's and hers growing inside of her in this world, this actual nightmare, and there's no Danny. Instead, she's married to some scrawny guy, another jerk to add to the long list that she's let romance her over the years. Or that she's convinced herself have romanced her, because, honestly, who of them have? She's settled for so long, let herself become something else for a long line of lovers, and the one that she dared to be herself with is gone.

Dating actual, literal Freida Pinto. If that's not a kick in the proverbial balls, she's not sure what is. 

 

* * *

 

For someone who works in one almost every day of the week, Mindy hates hospitals. At least, this part of them. There's no joy in the ICU, no exclamations of congratulations at the sight of a bundle of pink or blue. There's a horrible sense of unease, the beeping of monitors that are always either too fast or too slow, never quite right. The nurses enter every room like they're preparing to see the worst, the weariness that they all wear clouded in something else. 

It's awful, and Mindy absolutely cannot wait to get out, professing to anyone who dares to listen that she's ready to go home, as if she hasn't all the medical training in the world to remind her that it's a long road ahead. People don't just get hit by buses and start walking the very next day, people get hit by buses and _die_. 

She does wonder what the point of being weighted to this world is without Danny, though, whether surviving was worthwhile. He's not one of her visitors in the first days of her hospitalisation. She really has so few.

Whoever this Mindy is, she hates her.

 

* * *

 

The nurses insist that Mindy can't exist solely on Jell-O, but _she's_ insistent that she'll "die trying." It turns out that almost dying sheds new light on the world, and Mindy laughs at things she wouldn't have before. People are worried, of course, but she can't exactly explain that she's mourning a life that she had on another path, watching from the shore as the love of her life and her son sail by without her.

Morgan is there for comedic relief, thank god, bringing her all the Jell-O she could ever dream of until her tongue might be tattooed permanently blue, or red, or purple, telling her about his latest dog's antics and why he "really needed to save that mutt from that homeless guy" because he was "fairly sure he was going to eat him."

Mindy doesn't mind listening, for once, because Morgan's still _her_ Morgan here. 

"...and I mean, I only had to give him my jacket and my shoes and he handed the little guy right over. Better steal than my glasses from the Salvation Army, right?"

"Oh, Morgan," Mindy says, like she wants to kill him and kiss him all at once, before she starts to cry.

 

* * *

 

The crying stops, replaced with a muted feeling that, in anyone else, Mindy would diagnose as depression. Friends and family come and go and they're the same, they're her loved ones, but she feels half of a whole, dangling between two places and only wanting to be in one. She can't click her heels or count to ten and find herself back with Danny, arms full of him and their child and their future.

If only she hadn't insisted on marriage.

What the hell was marriage, anyway? What she had with Matt? Two people telling themselves that they'd be true to each other before promptly deciding not? 

She understands Danny better now than ever before, she's sure of it, and wishes she could tell him that.

But she'd tried, hadn't she? She'd shared a second first kiss in the rain like she was goddamn Mary-Jane and he was her Spider-Man, and what was it for?

She starts to think it might be easier if she never sees him again.

 

* * *

 

There are flowers but she doesn't look at the cards, because maybe they're from him and maybe they're not. 

 

* * *

 

"When are you going to let Dr. C in, already?" 

She's half asleep and positive she's misheard Morgan when Mindy opens her eyes, looking at him warily like he should have offered to placate her with more Jell-O before he approaches the subject of anything Dr. C, thankyouverymuch.

But what he's saying doesn't quite make sense, and Mindy blinks. "What do you mean, let him in?"

"I mean he's been holding a vigil outside your room for the past few days. It's kind of stealing my vigil's thunder, my eyes will never be as soulful as his, believe me, I've..."

"Shut up, Morgan! What do you mean, Danny's outside? You're saying he's right," she gestures frantically, IVs tugging though she can't feel it, she can't feel _anything._  "Out there?!"

"That is what I'm saying," Morgan repeats, slow, like he's talking a cat out of a tree or a jumper off a ledge.

 

* * *

 

Mindy sends Morgan out to bring Danny in and she automatically hears them bickering, the scraping of a metal chair leg against the floor, shuffling.

 _Men_ , she swears to God. 

It's takes everything she has in her like she hasn't quite regained the wind that was knocked out of her by the bus, but somehow Mindy manages. "Daniel Alan Castellano, get your ass in here!"

She regrets it almost immediately but there he is, confusion on his face as he tries to register what she just said. "How the hell do you know my middle name?"

"Oh my _god_ , it's your father's name, it's literally the most obvious choice ever, can we move on? What the hell have you been telling people? That I'm not allowing you in?"

He's glancing at the door like he should go, like he should leave her.

(Like he could ever leave her.)

"I... it was my fault. You got hit. It was me." There's a look of utter devastation in his expression, confusion giving way to guilt, to grief, and Mindy knows he's been thinking the same things she has been all this time, too. 

"Danny," she says, like a lifeline. " _Danny_..."

He puts up his hand to stop her, determined. "You could have died, and it would've all been on me."

"I would never have blamed you."

"You wouldn't have been around to stop me from blaming myself," Danny says, and his throat is so tight the words barely come out, the idea of her not being in his life suffocating him. "I can deal with us fighting, Min, I can deal with us not talking. I can deal with you hating me, with me pretending to hate you, but I could never, I could never..."

Her hand drops to the side of the bed and it's enough for him to realise what she wants, his fingers threading through hers. He can't finish his sentence, and she won't let him. Some things are better left unsaid, some realities too cruel to contemplate.

"I don't hate you," Mindy says, her gaze not quite meeting Danny's. "I'm mad at you."

"For not kissing you, I know, I know, I should have, and I would have..."

"I'm not mad about that." Mindy shakes her head. "I'm mad because you didn't come to see me. Because... no matter what happened, you should have been my friend."

"I _am_ your friend."

She squeezes his hand, then delicately lifts it to her mouth, kisses his knuckles and wonders how hard they must have been held in prayer. She knows Danny, and he knows her. Sometimes so well that it's unbearable. 

"I wish I would have kissed you," Danny says after a moment, slow but sure. "The first time. Before you went to Haiti."

It's far from what Mindy's expecting, to be told that his regrets stretch so far, so long ago. She goes to speak and again his hand is up. 

"I could have kissed you a thousand times between then and now," he says. "I wasted so much time."

They've always wasted time, Mindy thinks, right from the very beginning. Their refusal - his refusal – to be friends, and then the slow growth towards knowing each other. His breaking her heart in her bedroom, too scared at the prospect of losing his best friend. Every step forward has been three steps backward for them, she realises, and they've earned their giant leap forward.

This time, it's her hand that's lifted, gently guiding Danny's chin so that he's looking her in the eyes. For the first time since she woke up in bed with a stranger who turned out to be her husband, Mindy doesn't feel so far away.

"We both wasted time," she reminds him, because he's carried too much blame for too long. "No more."

She kisses him, then, and it might as well be their _third_ first kiss, his rejection in the rain forgotten with heat and breath.

 

* * *

 

She has a long way to go, they both do, but alone it doesn't seem quite so impossible. 

Danny curled at her side on a bed that's clearly made for one, Mindy leans into him and lets out a contented hum. They'll be okay, she knows, because there's nothing they haven't yet overcome.

"Danny?" she murmurs, turning and tilting her head to face him.

"Yeah?"

"If you ever abandon me after I get hit by a bus again, I will kill you."

His lips press against her hair and she can hear his smile. "I don't doubt that."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danny's perspective, this time around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **alittlenutjob** kindly encouraged me to write a second part, so here it is. My grasp on Danny's voice isn't so strong, but I felt like his side of the story needed to be told. It's a little different, and with far less dialogue than the first part.
> 
> Thanks to Stef and Laine for being utter legends. This is also for you. I hope we're friends in every reality.

 

_Tonight you just close your eyes,_

_and I just watch you slip away._

_How close am I to losing you?_

_([x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef1nJWtkprU))_

* * *

 

When she'd returned to her seat with her hair mussed, lipstick smudged, he'd known it was over then. His heart no longer in his throat but beating hard and _hurting_ in his chest, he'd watched as she rearranged herself and glanced every so often to the other side of the plane, like it held a secret she was longing to share.

He'd pretended to be asleep for the rest of the flight, knowing then that he'd never be the best version of himself.

Not without her.

 

* * *

 

Not without her.

He can't do this without her.

There are sirens and people screaming. The rain has barely let up and he's sure that he's drowning in it, that if he tilts his head a little to the sky all of him will fill up with water.

There's a blanket on his shoulders and he's told it's for shock, that everything's going to be okay, and he has half a mind to punch the paramedic who tells him. Nothing is going to be okay. Nothing can be okay. She'd kissed him and he'd kissed her back and it had felt like it was supposed to from the very first moment he met her, but none of it matters anymore. 

Not without her.

 

* * *

 

Danny visits when Mindy's still unconscious. It's easier that way, when she can't respond, when she can't pull away her hand when his is rested on hers. It's warm to the touch and he thanks God, he thanks God for the first time since he'd heard the thud of metal against her weight, forcing her onto the street. 

It's been so hard to believe, but she's here and she's breathing (she needs help, but she's breathing) and she's not beautiful like in the movies with the tubes in her mouth and her nose but she's still _beautiful_.

She's still Mindy.

 

* * *

 

When she wakes up, Danny leaves.

But he doesn't go far. He can't let himself go any further than right outside her door, unmoving in an uncomfortable seat that he's pulled up to the wall. 

He watches visitors come and go. Matt is among them, but he's there once and then not again, and the most selfish part of Danny hopes that it's _never_ again. He shouldn't wish Mindy's husband away, but he's never deserved her. Nobody who deserved Mindy would want to share her with anyone. Nobody who deserved Mindy would let her go so easily. 

That's how he knows he doesn't deserve her, after all, after all this time and all of these opportunities that he's let himself waste.

Not just the plane or the kiss in the rain, but right at the beginning, right when she'd gone to Haiti with Casey and almost married a man who had no fucking idea how lucky he was.

All this time he's criticised her mistakes, but what has he ever done to stop her?

He's only ever stopped himself.

 

* * *

 

Morgan is a constant. 

Because he's Morgan and he has no sense of personal space, for one, but also because he's courageous in ways Danny's never been, drawn towards people in need instead of away from them. He brings Mindy contraband, Danny's sure of it, and doesn't give up on trying to get him to come inside and visit.

Morgan's never given up on Danny, _period_ , which he thinks might just be a first. 

"She's probably sleeping right now," Morgan says, in practical singsong. "Just do what I do. Snow White her. She loves it."

Not convinced in the least, Danny lifts up a Ludlum he hasn't touched in three days and shakes his head. "Maybe after the next chapter. Getting real suspenseful."

"Okay, well, shower at least. You smell worse than Beverly."

 

* * *

 

He sends flowers but he doesn't sign the card, because he doesn't deserve to have her know that they're from him. She just deserves them. She deserves everything.

 

* * *

  

Eventually, he _does_ go home and he panics the entire time, like if he's away for too long she'll regress and flatline. It's irrational, she's been stable for days and harassing the nurses for news on when she can go home (she's so stubborn, and he loves that about her, he loves almost everything about her) but he can't stop feeling like he has to be there.

Because he'd walked away and she'd almost died and that, _that's_ a fact he'll never be able to forget.

When he lets himself sleep (and it's fitful at the best of times) he dreams that she's gone, _really_ gone, and he can't even bring himself to go to her funeral but instead finds her grave late at night and presses his face against the freshly dug earth. He tells himself that if he hopes hard enough, maybe he can breathe life into her again.

He wakes up all sweat and tears, has to fight himself not to go in and check that she's still there.

 

* * *

 

He relies on Morgan for updates and after a while it's not about her stats but about how she's feeling. Danny can't remember the last time he dared let himself wonder about what Mindy Lahiri's been feeling. It's been too complicated for too long. She'd told him about her wedding like she was reporting on a patient, and he'd known that for him there was no invitation.

And he never would have gone, never could have gone. He'd attended one too many of her weddings already.

He wishes he could take back all of those moments, now, all of the awkward interactions in the office where they'd been amicable at their best. He wishes he could take back all of the resentment, because it makes all of the life and love he wishes for her now feel tarnished, like a last desperate plea that no god will take seriously. He's ruined so much between them, wasted so much time, all he can do is pray that things are good for her again.

He'll take whatever God has for him as long as things are good for her again. As long as she's okay.

 

* * *

 

Morgan insists that Danny come inside and he's physically _pulling_ him towards the door when he hears Mindy's voice for the first time in too long, raised and calling his name. His whole name, and not just a guess, like she tells him, but proof of the reality that she'd told him about before the accident.

It's too much to argue against when he sees her, and she's so alive, so animated, so _Mindy_ , that he thinks he might cry. 

There are words that he won't remember in the future and a kiss that he couldn't forget if he wanted to, and he realises that her _okay_  means him being there. That all along, their distance was never the solution, only another problem.

 

* * *

 

Danny wants to know everything about their alternate reality, about their son and about whatever it was he did to get it right when, here, he's always had it so wrong. But he realises (and there's so much that he's only just realising) that it doesn't matter. That life is another life they share but can't know of here,  all they have is each other and their future together. Here. It's all that matters. Mindy is all that matters. He can do anything, he's learning, but not without her.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the kind of fic that was written out of pure emotion, and thus probably riddled with errors, inconsistencies and medical inaccuracies. I hope you enjoyed it anyway.


End file.
